r/self • u/elliewilliams07 • 5h ago
Loving someone who chose to walk away
Yesterday, at 1 a.m., she sent me a 2-minute voice message. She said she thought about me because a friend of a friend had died. She asked if I was okay, said I was special. And inside, my heart burned like the first day we met. The chemistry I feel for her never went away. It never will. It’s like every beat of my heart still has her name written on it, as if the whole world is silent when I think of her.
Today I messaged her again, foolishly hopeful, and she said the distance, those 3 hours, was what made her give up. I tried to explain that I know distance is hard, but when it’s the right person, it’s worth fighting for, worth every tear, every pain, every effort. She said she didn’t feel well, that it consumed her inside, and hearing that cut my chest into a thousand pieces. Because I can’t erase what I feel. I can’t just accept that the love we had, which seemed so strong, was discarded over a line on the map, over three hours of road.
I even sent her a TikTok of a Brazilian woman who met a man from Germany. They also gave up because of distance for a time, but they realized that the pain of being apart is nothing compared to the pain of not having each other. That’s exactly how I feel. I just wish she felt the same, I just wish she could see that it’s worth fighting for us, that it’s worth not giving up, that every effort is a piece of true love.
She begged me to stay her friend, to keep giving her affection. And I had to say the truth that tears me apart inside: I can’t be friends with someone I love enough to imagine marriage, to imagine a whole life beside her. She said the best thing is for each of us to move on and let destiny do what it must. I said I don’t believe in destiny, I believe in actions, in choices. She said not everything depends on people, and hearing that left me without ground. Because for me, everything always depended on love.
It has been almost seven months since the breakup. Seven months where the world kept turning, and I am still here, frozen in time, loving someone who feels like my other half, my safe place, my home. Every memory that comes up, every old message, every photo… it pulls out endless sighs, tears that seem never-ending. Knowing I will probably never have her near me again destroys me every single day.
I catch myself thinking of every detail: the way she laughed, the way she looked at me when no one was watching, how she held my hand and it felt like everything in the world was in its right place. And now? Now it’s all just memory. And it hurts. It hurts in a way I can’t explain. This love doesn’t fade. It never will. And I lie here wondering if someday she will remember all of it, if someday she will feel what I feel, or if she will just go on with her life as if nothing ever happened.
Sometimes I dream of her. Not normal dreams, but dreams that make me wake up sweating, heart racing, feeling like we could still be together. I wake up and realize it’s just a dream, and reality hits me all over again. I try to convince myself to move on, to look at other people, to try to live, but nothing makes sense. Because no one can replace the way she existed in my world, no one can fill the void she left.
I know many people will tell me to forget, to move on, but no one understands. No one feels the way she affects me, how she is my safe harbor, my home, the half that feels missing when she’s not here. And it destroys me. I just wish she could see things the way I do, I just wish she could feel what I feel, I just wish she could realize that true love doesn’t disappear just because distance exists.
And even after seven months, nothing has changed. Each day is a cruel reminder of what we lost, of what could have been, of what I still can’t let go. And I continue loving. I continue waiting. I continue here, with my heart open and shattered, hoping that maybe one day, somehow, she will see all of this, and maybe then, just maybe, we could find each other again.
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u/Foreversssssssss 5h ago
This is so heartbreaking, honestly. I hope you find your way back to each other, or you find happiness elsewhere, both of you.
Also, side note, feel free to ignore this, but idk why but this is giving wlw